


Don't Take That Sinner From Me

by Tassledown



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Fifth Year Fic, Gen, Religious fic, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-05 19:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20278492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassledown/pseuds/Tassledown
Summary: Surrounded by all the memories of Grimmauld Place and the members of the Order, Sirius has nowhere to turn to cope with the news of the Azkaban breakout that January.He's not even sure he remembers enough to pray.





	Don't Take That Sinner From Me

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration and title both are from "Devil's Backbone" by The Civil Wars.

Sirius skirted the _ Daily Prophet _ on the table like it might bite. He didn’t want to read it, and yet he picked it up again as though compelled: ‘_Mass Breakout_,’ it announced; followed by their photos. The Order would have to meet, to decide what to do, what this meant for the war.

Sirius had to decide what he would _ say_.

He used to know them only by reputation, if not by name. Now, after twelve years with them in Azkaban, he knew too much. Travers had grieved Silas Rosier after he died. Dolohov had covered his cell with the photos of his cousin’s pigeons. Rookwood had nightmares of nearly dying of dragonpox as a child.

He dropped the paper in disgust. He wasn’t _ capable _ of knowing them so long and not caring; he couldn’t turn them into targets, or pieces in a game. He could distract himself, briefly, but it had taken him half the war to call his cousin a Lestrange. 

Her face was the first thing he saw every time he looked at the paper. He wondered how old the photo was. The aurors took them sporadically, when they checked the cells for things the Dementors could miss: vermin and illness and contraband. 

She looked like Hell. 

It shouldn’t bother him like it did. Personal care like that took a backseat when most inmates could barely bring themselves to eat, and yet guilt gnawed at him in the silence of Grimmauld Place. 

He’d left her there. Starvation made her nightmares worse, which made it harder for her to eat. He’d barely been able to coax her to eat on her bad days; she didn’t respond to anyone else. 

He’d _ abandoned _her, knowing how she would suffer without him.

That was ridiculous. She had most of her strike team with her, the soldiers who fought with her through the war: the Lestranges, Dolohov, Yaxley, and Travers. She was back with Macnair, and reunited at last with her lover as she’d wanted to be. She didn’t _ need _ him.

He left the kitchen, as if he could leave behind the news, and he found himself at a door that tasted Black blood before it let him inside. The room inside stretched back into darkness, rows of shelves topped with generations of Blacks that stared down at him, bare of flesh and blood but not sight. Dead, but not gone.

Before the shelves sat a shrine: a table and crucifix, a clean and empty cruse of oil, a bowl of water that should have been holy, and an offering dish. Two vases braced the cross; he’d filled them with white lilies. 

The Blacks were Christian, of course, but not _ common _ ones. Much like they did everything else, there was always a little something darker to it. Christ and family, blood and oil; your eternal soul, and the part that stayed _ here _ in the house to watch over the living.

He hadn’t brought anything for the offering dish. He pricked a finger and dabbed a drop of blood on the china, then crossed himself and tried to remember if he knew how to pray. There was words you were supposed to say, ones that got him pinched in church when he’d forgotten, but so, too, did you pray because you wanted something, _ needed _ something, and no one else could help. Now, he was filled with need: _ Please, don’t let her die on me. _

He didn’t know if he was asking God or the watching skulls. Probably God; the Blacks weren’t exactly forgiving, not of runaways and forsworn daughters who took up with another Lord. He was here and had cleaned the old bones and made offerings, but that was not enough to ask a favour. Forgiveness was more like God.

_ She isn’t joining you, not yet, _ he thought, as though he really believed he’d be _ able _ to take her body back when she died.

There was an old rosary on the table. He’d polished the silver, and oiled the wooden beads as you did for decoration. He picked it up, now, to hold the cross in his palm. You started there, he remembered, and a prayer that started _ Pater noster, qui es in caelis… Our father in heaven…. _

_ Please don’t let her die, _ he thought as he mouthed the half-remembered words. _ Please, I know what she’s done but she’s all I have. _

_ Ave Maria, gratia plena… Hail Mary, full of grace…. _

_ I know I can’t atone for her sins, but please don’t take her and leave me alone. _

He had to stop, then, as he forgot what else to say and someone had crossed the wards downstairs. He pocketed the rosary as he left. It burned in his pocket the rest of the day; what he’d done just wasn’t _ enough _. 

Between worried visitors and a dozen letters, as the Order tried to make a meeting happen with enough people to be worth it, Sirius remembered the twelfth century church that stood not far away. It wasn’t his family’s religion - that was so old it didn’t remember its own name - but Catholic was close enough for his father to have gone, and therefore close enough for him.

He wasn’t supposed to leave the safety of Grimmauld Place, but he _ also _ shouldn’t be shaking with fear and grief for his Death Eater cousin. He had to do _ something _.

The house wasn’t being watched by Death Eaters or the ministry. He checked twice before he left, and wandered the streets in jeans and a creased leather jacket, his hair pulled back in a messy bun. He looked like any muggle that might live in the downward spiral of his neighbours.

The church was still open this early in the evening, and Sirius slipped inside to find the small table of candles and matches. His father had come here for the same thing. Sirius had dug muggle coins out of a locked drawer in his office and now dropped a few quid in the box, a belated apology on his father’s behalf.

Orion had always lit three candles, although he’d never said who they were for. Sirius only wanted one. He set her candle in place and lit it, repeating softly in his mind, _ Please don’t let her die. _

_ I’d do anything to know she was okay. _

It was late enough most of the candles that had been lit that day had burned down. He could hear the priest moving in a side room of the church, and he stood and watched the flame as tears burned at the edge of his eyes.

The thought of what he might do if Bella wanted to come back to him, come _ home _ crossed his mind. He couldn’t offer her sanctuary if she did, not with the Order in their family home. His flat could work; he’d have to tear down the monitoring wards to do it, but he needed more muggle coinage anyways if he was going to pray. His wallet would be on the table in the entry, and _ that _ was inane enough he had to laugh. 

He muffled it quickly, and left before the priest came to check on what he’d heard. He wasn’t ready to return to Grimmauld Place; he wasn’t certain he felt like this was done. He went around the back of the church, and shivered as he walked between the headstones in the winter chill.

A warming charm could banish the chill, but not the stinging tears or his heart beating frantically in his chest. 

Where was she now, he wondered. Was she safe, or was she scared? Was her Lord taking care of her, or merely gloating over his victory and damn the people he’d reclaimed?

Lestrange could only do so much; Voldemort was her lover, never him. Their marriage had been her way out of their family, once Sirius was gone. And now… He could no more go to her, than she could come to him. 

She’d been more than just the Dark Lord’s lover; she’d been his General, their beloved commander. He’d seen _ that _ confirmed in Azkaban, and if he told the Order her death or capture would become a priority in order to win the war. 

Her freedom put his godson in danger, and yet he didn’t know if he could bring himself to tell them.

He huddled deeper into his coat and slipped out the church gates before the priest came around to lock it. The family had to have books on religion at home. He could waste his time finding more ways to pray there, instead of pacing a graveyard hoping something held his answers here.


End file.
